Greetings, Friends. I know it's been a little while. Things been happening. Mostly the normal goings-on and vagaries of everyday existence, except for a few.
My older brother, Terry, died last February after years of suffering ill health. He'd get worse, then get better, then worse and better, then a little bit worse, and so on, until he just couldn't do it anymore. I don't think any of us were surprised - on the contrary, the biggest surprise was that he stuck it out as long as he did (I think he was fueled by a hefty dose of stubbornness) - but of course, that doesn't really soften the loss much. Even when you expect a death, it still leaves an empty spot. This is the way,
Grieving a loss is difficult in our modern world, where the globe still spins, and maybe you get three days of bereavement leave from your job if you're lucky. Three days? Who decided that was a sufficient standard? How are you supposed to grieve and take care of business in three measly days? It took weeks to clean out Terry's apartment, with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and several of his friends to help. He was 70 years old with varied interests and had a lot of stuff he'd collected over the years, so there was a lot to go through. And apparently it all belonged to me, seeing as I was the last surviving next of kin. Anyhow, I kept the mementos I wanted - books, CDs, a treasure trove of old family photos, several pens (we shared a love of fine writing instruments), and our dad's Colt pistol. Other items were distributed among family and friends.
It was in the early fall I finally felt the veil of grief lifting, which was good since we had a full music schedule for Halloween and Christmas. It sucks when you have to Perform When Depressed, because the super-masking you have to do is exhausting, so I was happy to be feeling some relief. The holidays were lovely and laid-back, and we ate a lot of good food. Then January happened.
After being off work for a week over Christmas, I went back on January 2, and BAM, it was mayhem right out of the gate. Now, I knew that was likely to be the case, so I wasn't particularly surprised, but this turned out to be a much higher grade of mayhem than I expected. I worked after 4:30 (normal quitting time) on several nights, and was exhausted after that - and I work from home. (Lands, if I was still commuting an hour each way, I would have been a much hotter mess.) This went on for a couple of weeks, so there were quite a few soup & sandwich suppers, plus takeout, because I just didn't have the energy to cook. And just when the work madness was winding down, we got hit with a major ice storm, the likes of which Tennessee hasn't seen since 1994. (I remember that one, too.)
It started out innocently enough, with a lovely fluffy snow on Saturday morning. We stocked up on supplies since we knew there might be ice, and we may not be able to get out of our neighborhood for a few days, but we've lived through that before and it was no big deal. Once the streets cleared, we'd be all good. Right?
WRONG.
Everything was perfectly normal when we went to bed on Saturday, January 24. But on Sunday, January 25, our power went out, and now, today on Saturday, January 31, we still have no power. Even in the Great Ice Storm of 94, we were only out 3 days. Shouldn't civilization have advanced enough in 32 years that a week-long power outage would be a thing of the past?
Well, apparently not.
The large pine tree at the foot of our driveway had dropped several branches due to the ice, including one hefty branch blocking the way out. So Mr Caudell and I bundled up, hunted up the chansaw, and went to work. We managed to get the driveway cleared, arthritis notwithstanding, which left us with a gargantuan pile of pine tree debris in the yard. (Pine needles make good mulch, so at least there's that.) While we were clearing the driveway, Mr Caudell looked over at a mighty tree in the next-door neighbor's yard, and commented that it looked like it was leaning, and hey, the top of it is laying over that power line. We didn't think anything else of it until a couple of hours later, we heard a loud crash. The tree had uprooted itself, blocking the street, and taking out the power line, which happened to include the actual line to our house. Swell. (Our power mast doesn't appear to have been damaged, but I guess we'll find out, if the Nashville Electric Service crew ever makes its way here.)
I called Hub Nashville and reported the tree, but it was someone in the neighborhood who eventually cleared it enough so people could get through. We weren't going to touch it because POWER LINE, but hey, thanks for taking that risk. (An actual tree removal crew did finally come by yesterday and finish the job.)
Seeing as how we have gas heat and a gas cooktop, we weren't too concerned, because we could stay warm, cook, heat up water, etc. Our refrigerator is just outside the kitchen in the unheated attached garage, so our food has stayed cold. (We did lose the ice cream, but all the meat is still frozen.) We're relatively experienced campers so this wasn't a completely unfamiliar situation; although, I hadn't needed to wash my hair in the sink in years, so that was a comical adventure, but I figured it out. And then I thought about my grandmother.
Mamaw, as we called her, didn't have a house with indoor plumbing until around 1983 or so, when she had to move "into town" because my grandfather required round-the clock-care by this point. But when I was a child, and went to stay with Mamaw, we had an outhouse, a chamber pot, and a washbowl. Now here I was 50something years later, having to heat up water on the stove to wash my hair. (At least this time I do have a flush toilet.) She lived like that for years and was content. And she was always clean and put-together, and her hair was always done. Heck, even after she moved into a house with indoor plumbing, she insisted on keeping her old wringer-washer, until the aunts & uncles convinced her it wasn't safe to carry laundry down the basement stairs (it really wasn't), and they got her a modern electric washer & dryer. But you can see where the stubbornness comes from.
And then . . . I thought about my brother. If he were still here, we'd be swapping ice storm stories and remembering what it was like to visit Mamaw with no indoor plumbing. Maybe somewhere beyond the veil, the two of them are sitting at her old yellow diner table with the yellow vinyl chairs, having a cup of coffee and talking about the time Mamaw's newly canned peaches exploded in the storage closet under the stairs.
In the meantime, I'll just sit here with my knitting and wait for the power to come back on. Is January over yet?
Peace out and God bless ---
KFC
